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Elizabeth Hadaway
THEME WEDDING
The bride rode toward us on a vintage tractor
the color of her hair: cornsilk, soon red.
We rose from rows of haybales in her honor,
invoked hope for the couple, left unsaid
how many furrows this year sprouted failure,
how many broken plows we’d harvested.
“VOCAL MUSIC ONLY”
Church sign vs. kudzu,
burdock, pokeweed, poison
ivy, and canned backing,
grand piano donors’
egos, twisted catgut,
cipherous old organs,
tiffs about the mix or
financing the dobro.
Vocal music only:
free in Clinchco, holy,
unadulterated
locust and wild honey.
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Elizabeth Hadaway, alias Leigh Palmer, is the author of Fire Baton (University of Arkansas Press, 2006) and The Prophets at Joppa, a play about Jonah in ottava rima. She held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford and a King Scholarship at Virginia Theological Seminary.
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